Pete Manghera has interviewed scores of people during his 14-year run as a local talk show host.

San Pedro residents over the years could flick on cable access Channel 33 on Saturday nights and see Manghera chatting with local personalities and politicians, including Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn and Rep. Jane Harman. During the O.J. Simpson trial, he said, then-District Attorney Gil Garcetti made an appearance.

But last month marked Manghera’s last time filming his show, “Pete’s Place,” in a San Pedro studio that Cox Communications provided for public access programming.

“Cox told us in December that it was our last show,” said Manghera, whose brother, Jeff, was the producer, director and editor. “We had the show on for 14 years. We never really had a problem getting guests. There was enough stuff going on in the local community.”

The loss of “Pete’s Place” and similar local programs has both saddened and outraged public access advocates, who fear a new state law has limited the ability of citizens to connect with their communities and display their talents on television.

Leslie Dutton of “Full Disclosure Network,” an Emmy award-winning news program that was launched on public access television more than 16 years ago, said she believes the law caught people off-guard, and that the studio closings mean that fewer members of the public have the opportunity to produce shows.

“We’re losing a great deal of the ability to communicate with the community,” said Dutton, whose network is based in Marina del Rey.

Hawthorne City Councilman Gary Parsons, who used to produce a talk show called “Spotlight on Hawthorne,” said the closures will limit public discourse.

“The trouble is, there’s really no way for community groups to get their word out anymore,” Parsons said.

The changes are the result of the Digital Infrastructure and Video Competition Act which established a statewide franchise for telecommunications providers and did away with city-by-city agreements.

Telecommunications giants AT&T and Verizon, which wanted to offer television service through high-speed phone lines, claimed the drawn-out and costly process of securing permission from individual cities and counties stifled expansion plans. Local governments emerged as the main opponents to the legislation, arguing the proposal would lead to reduced revenues from franchise fees and a loss of public access programming, among other issues.

Though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the law in 2006, the change in public access programming didn’t become apparent until recently.

Effective this month, the law allowed cable companies to opt out of providing training and studios for PEG (public access, education and government) channels.

Cox shuttered its San Pedro space Jan. 1, the same day Time Warner Cable closed 12 studios across Los Angeles that provided programming for 11 channels.

Space that Time Warner leased inside Torrance’s telecommunications building to provide public access studios for Hawthorne, Lawndale, Gardena and El Segundo has also closed, and the public can no longer use a studio on Valley Drive in Hermosa Beach, said Darryl Ryan, a Time Warner spokesman. That site served the three beach cities.

Although the company has stopped providing equipment, staff and space for public access, it isn’t doing away with the channels, Ryan said.

But that puts the onus on local governments to assume the cost.

“We will have those channels and those spaces available. Essentially now the law is giving the municipalities involved the responsibility of providing programming,” he said. “We’ve been working with all of the municipalities well over the past 18 months to anticipate this change.”

The new law requires cable operators to pay cities a 1 percent fee on gross revenues that can be put toward capital expenses for PEG programming — such as cameras and equipment — to run their own studios, on top of the 5 percent maximum franchise fee cities already are able to collect.

At least in Torrance, which assumed responsibility of public access facilities more than 20 years ago, local leaders won’t have to make a decision about accommodating the programs and talent.

But critics of the law fear the state of the economy and the overhead costs of staffing, equipping and running a studio will prevent cash-strapped cities from moving in Torrance’s direction. Or, money aside, whether they’d even want to.

In Los Angeles, for example, city leaders last month agreed to limit the number of PEG channels to four, with the possibility that one would devote some time to public access programs. Public access advocates question who will choose which programs are aired, and that producers will be forced to compete for air time.

Maggie Healy, cable administrator for Redondo Beach, said the city plans to use the new fee to upgrade equipment for its government Channel 8, where City Council meetings are broadcast. Opening a studio for public access programs “would take a lot more than the 1 percent,” she said.

With the rise of YouTube, blogging and other ways of getting a message out online, some say the number of public access programs was dwindling even before the closure of local studios.

Tom Strickfaden, cable television supervisor in Lawndale, said he’s seen a “definite fall-off” within the past two years of South Bay residents producing such content.

With the Internet, “anyone who has a voice can publish a blog,” he said, and bloggers don’t need crew members and expensive equipment.

Since learning of the studio closure, Manghera said he’s been looking around and hopes to find some other way to keep his show on the air.

And Hawthorne Councilman Parsons said he has considered relaunching his program online.

But he still sees public access programming as “a valuable public service.” The free training and studio time he received at Time Warner’s studio led to the creation of a 20-minute show that touched upon timely issues and City Hall services.

“We’d talk about what was happening in the local community,” he said. “We would really take time to (go) in-depth.”

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